Intimate
by MildredandBobbin
Summary: One shot. The first time John sleeps with Sherlock is after Jim Moriarty tries to turn John into a suicide bomber. Spoilers for everything.


**Title:** Intimate

**Author:** MildredandBobbin

**Rating: T (language and sexual scenes)**

**Spoilers:** everything

**Description:** One shot. The first time John sleeps with Sherlock is after Jim Moriarty tries to turn John into a suicide bomber.

**Disclaimer:** This incarnation of Sherlock is owned by the clever folk at the BBC, original from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

**Author's Note:** I'm trying writing in a different tense to what I usually do but this story seemed to call for it. Nothing original here but I wanted to think about 'what if' they were sleeping together before The Fall.

* * *

**Intimate**

The first time John sleeps with Sherlock is after Jim Moriarty tries to turn John into a suicide bomber. The bitter irony of it all isn't lost on the Afghanistan veteran – that it's when he's back home in England that he ends up on the bad end of some Semtex and a detonator.

It's probably why he has his first war flashback dream in months. He sits up, heart pounding, mouth dry, disoriented, soaked in sweat.

"Sherlock! Sherlock!" he screams before he realises where he is and that it's ok. Ok.

He goes downstairs, needing to see another face, expecting to find Sherlock sitting up late. He isn't. John sighs and goes into the kitchen to make some hot cocoa, to try to calm his nerves enough to sleep.

"Can't sleep?"

He turns and sees Sherlock standing in the doorway, wearing pyjamas.

"Nightmare," says John.

"You look terrified."

"Was…was terrified. That's what nightmares do."

Sherlock reaches over and closes his hand over the shaking one John has wrapped around his mug. "You were just strapped in a bomb with sniper rifles trained on you. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed."

Sherlock closes the distance between them. Invades his personal space. "I keep thinking about what you…offered to do tonight. No one's ever done that before."

John swallows and looks away, Sherlock is too close. Normally it doesn't bother him, he's become used to it. Maybe it is the pyjamas making it more intimate. "You would have done the same for me. Well you did, you stupid git, you were supposed to run."

"And leave you? Hardly."

John snorts with choked laughter. "You were supposed to." He risks a glance at Sherlock and finds himself caught by piercing blue eyes. He feels laid bare by Sherlock's gaze. More so than usual. His mouth feels suddenly dry and his pulse beats faster as if revealing a secret he won't admit to himself.

And then Sherlock leans forward and presses his lips to John's. John steps backwards, startled.

"Sherlock? I'm not- "

There's an awkward pause and Sherlock's lips part as if he's going to speak but he doesn't get a chance because John reaches forward, cups Sherlock's jaw with his free hand and restarts the kiss. It seems oddly right and shockingly arousing. He parts his lips and deepens the kiss. It doesn't make sense at all and John doesn't want to think too hard about it. Sherlock presses him backwards until he bumps against the kitchen cabinet, the length of Sherlock's body flush against his. The surprise makes his breath hitch.

This time Sherlock pulls back, but only a fraction, tugging absently on the hem of John's pyjama shirt. "Adrenalin."

"Good, hmm what?" says John brushing his lips back against Sherlock surprisingly soft and feminine ones. He grips soft flannelette with his hands. His erection is embarrassingly obvious through the fabric of his pyjamas, but then, so is Sherlock's, hard against his hip.

"You were going to say you're not gay." Sherlock presses in again, murmuring against his cheek, his hand gripping the back of John's neck.

John runs a hand through Sherlock's hair, holding him and catches Sherlock's bottom lip. "M'm not. M'm straight." He slides his other hand under Sherlock's top, feeling warm, soft skin.

Sherlock draws away again, his fingers mirroring John's exploration under his pyjama shirt. "It's the adrenalin. You don't have –" a lingering draw on John's lips - "to worry." He finds John's lips again.

"'bout my sexuality. 'm not."

He draws back and is transfixed by Sherlock's eyes, dark with arousal. There is a flush of pink across his cheeks, lips reddened.

John takes a breath, letting the word fall from his lips: "Bed?"

Sherlock nods and pulls him, kissing as they go, upstairs to John's room.

Sherlock's fingers hook into the waistband of John's pyjama pants, tugging downwards urgently. John pulls his shirt over his head, kicks the trousers off from around his feet and then returns the favour while Sherlock steals kisses and removes his own pyjama shirt. And there's a pause, where Sherlock presses his forehead to John's and John's blood pounds loudly in his ears and excitement and fear war with _wanting_, but he's not sure what –

"How-" Sherlock begins.

The thought of Sherlock kneeling at his feet makes his cock twitch but it suddenly seems too intimate, no longer just mates relieving some tension, in the heat of the moment. And John decides then, that if this was going to happen, maybe the only time, ever, then he ought to do it properly.

"Fuck me," he says. "Condoms, lube, bedside drawer."

And the look Sherlock gives him is enough to stop his breath for an instant. And John lets him push him face down on the bed and very carefully and thoroughly as only Sherlock can, fuck him into the mattress.

It feels bloody amazing.

The next morning John wakes up alone. Embarrassed. Awkward. A bit achey. He showers, dresses, finds some breakfast, says good morning to Sherlock who's working at the kitchen table and doesn't mention anything about what happened between them. Neither does Sherlock. Their day continues on as usual. They don't even really talk about the pool, just in passing.

But John can't help watching Sherlock when he's certain he's too occupied to notice, to apply a layer of remembered touch and taste and sensation over his perception of his friend.

It doesn't happen again that night and John isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed. Both.

But, sometime later in the week he has to go to Dublin for the day and arrives home late in the evening.

"Oh, John, there you are," says Sherlock when he walks into the living room. He stands up and crosses the floor to him, shedding clothes and then shows him in no uncertain terms that he wishes to have sex with him.

John lets him, fuelled by a desire borne out of a memory that had become only more tantalising as it seems unlikely to be repeated and of something his subconscious had been hinting at for far longer.

He wakes first, the next morning, naked next to Sherlock, in Sherlock's bed. Embarrassed again, at himself for wanting this so much, confused now as well as feeling awkward, in desperate need of a shower he disappears into the bathroom and is towelling himself dry when Mrs Hudson's voice from the kitchen informs them that they have a case.

Sherlock, the bastard, comes out yawning, wrapped only in his sheet. And John, being the most dressed, is sent off to investigate while Sherlock goes back to bed for a few hours. And then before anything could be said about anything they are in Buckingham Palace and Sherlock is still wearing his sheet.

And then Irene Adler bewitches Sherlock and John doesn't have to worry about whatever it is that has been happening between them or what it means or what it means about _him_. Because Sherlock has obviously fallen for her and John doesn't have to think about any of the personal boundaries he's crossed or his own feelings. Because Irene is a woman and Irene is clever and John knows who he'd choose, if he were Sherlock.

He doesn't believe he's jealous of The Woman. He is being protective of his friend in the face of a conniving, scheming sexual predator who is playing some sort of mind game with his friend and colleague. That is all. Despite what she says.

* * *

It is a week or so after the Adler case has been finally, eventfully concluded and Sherlock is feeling antsy. He is waiting for Moriarty to make his move and no move has come. It is frustrating and annoying and worse, there are no cases to take him mind off things. And he hasn't had any more sex with John for a very long time. And with no case or no distracting Woman to keep his mind occupied, this fact is becoming irritatingly hard to ignore. He knows this would probably be the outcome after John's experimentation with homosexual intercourse but still, he hoped he'd have been able to convince him to continue for a bit longer. Sherlock suspects John thinks he had been in love with Irene, as if such a thing were possible with someone who sees sex and power as interchangeable, who _blackmailed,_ something Sherlock personally despises. John is wrong. But John told Irene that he was straight still, that he and Sherlock weren't a couple. He had been very vehement on that point. Sherlock accepts that statement and hasn't approached John for sexual intercourse again. Their friendship means too much to jeopardise it by pressuring John about an activity he had tried and obviously had not enjoyed. So that's how it is.

But if John won't give him sex, he could at least give him a bloody cigarette.

Sherlock, despite Mycroft's implication, is not alarmed by sex. Quite frankly he hasn't been interested in it, it seems so base, but he is interested in John. And interested in touching John. And interested in John touching him. Sex _with John _is fascinating. And indulging that fascination only twice had not yet satisfied it.

Irene Adler had been fascinating too, but not because of sex, rather how she used it. When he told her he wasn't hungry it wasn't because he didn't _do _sex. It was because he'd already had dinner.

And sex was the one thing Sherlock would not do with Ms Adler because to do so would be to allow her to win. Besides, there was one thing he had realised since his encounter with John, sex is too personal, too exposing. It makes him too vulnerable. He would not trust anyone else.

Irene, Mycroft, Moriarty all believe he had never indulged in carnal activities. They are all wrong. He would do it again in a heartbeat if John asked him.

And then Henry Knight shows up with his Hound story and _finally _Sherlock has something interesting to do_._

* * *

It is their last night in Baskerville. The hound was just a dog, the terror had just been drugs in the atmosphere. The fear in the laboratory had been the same. It doesn't stop John lying awake in his bed, still twitching in fear at the slightest sound. He drifts off to sleep, only to wake screaming at the terrible images in his head.

"John? John, wake up." Sherlock is there, next to him in the dark. He feels arms around him, holding him, hands rubbing his upper arms, soothing, calming. He relaxes.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "Dream."

"Go to sleep. I'm here." He feels the bed shift as Sherlock slides in beside him, loops his arm around his waist, comforting, safe. He doesn't protest. It's what his jarred nerves need.

"'K, thanks…sorry."

And John closes his eyes again, waiting to drift off again into the darkness. But sleep won't come. He is suddenly very awake. He is too aware of the other body beside him, of the warmth against his side, the strong arm around him. It has been a long time since he's been in this sort of embrace with Sherlock. It's something he didn't think would be repeated.

His mind runs through the events of the past few days.

"Sherlock?" he whispers.

"Yes?" Sherlock's voice is low and close to his ear. It makes a tingle run down John's neck.

"I owe you an apology. The first night, when you went a bit…well…spare, I didn't appreciate how terrified you were. What I felt in the lab, well I realised why you acted the way you did."

"Ah," says Sherlock. There is a pause. "Good."

The hand around John's waist tightens slightly. In the dark it is easy to turn over, let his hand reach down, find another hand. Touch. Hear a shift in breath. Sherlock's hand is cool and John rubs his thumb over each knuckle in turn.

"I know something that might help improve our brain chemistry," says Sherlock. It is said so hopefully that it makes John chuckle. Lightness invading the dark.

"Really?" he says, playing along, a delicious tingle of anticipation forming inside.

In the dark it is easy to cross that short distance, bump noses, find mouths. Lips, tongues, teeth.

In the dark, senses are heightened. The merest graze of warm skin, touching unexpectedly causes sparks as if it's carbon against flint.

They kiss slowly, light mixing into deep and back again. A responding touch, a hand sliding across his waist, resting.

John moves his leg slightly to the right until it's pressed, pyjama clad knee to bare foot against Sherlock's.

Sherlock's hand on his waist starts to trace circles, slipping down over his belly where his t-shirt has ridden up. John slides his hand down over Sherlock's hip bone, pushes under the waist band of his pyjamas, then back again, savouring the gentle curve, the softness. He presses his thigh closer.

Sherlock's hand travels down, under the elastic at John's waist. John could hear his own breath and his own heart. He could feel desire curling upwards, enveloping.

In the dark it's easy to press close, hips together, John touching where he had hesitated before. Exploring, being explored. Turning, moving against that other, sharp body in the dark.

Slow. Silent but for breathing, rough and sharp, mouths snagging kisses between breathless gasps.

"John…" it's like a plea. And then they are turning again and Sherlock is straddling him, slipping down his body, biting and kissing in his wake.

John finds himself trembling at the thought of what's to come as Sherlock mouths at his lower belly; to have Sherlock this way, to have Sherlock do this for him. He imagines that beautiful curved mouth taking him, that dark head bent over him.

"Sherlock…"

And then it happens and John has to bite his lip to stop from crying out. Sherlock explores first, tasting, trying out different ways of torturing John but then he finds a rhythm and John has to do all he can not to thrust into this mouth. Words form in his mind but he can't say them, they wouldn't be welcome. He just breathes instead.

Sherlock swallows when he's done and John with a chuckle half drags him up, half bends to meet him, kissing him frantically, kissing away the taste of himself. He can feel Sherlock smiling against his mouth. And John reaches between them, finding Sherlock hard, straining against him.

It doesn't take long, this mix of stroking and thrusting. And when it's over silence falls but so does sleep.

John wakes, stickiness dried into stuck, alone save for a warm patch where a body has recently been.

It's morning.

He showers, dresses, goes downstairs and starts breakfast. Sherlock joins him.

John tells Sherlock things that had occurred to him as he got dressed that morning, about the mystery. John finds out his experience in the laboratory had been Sherlock experimenting on him. He's angry, betrayed. He's not sure if Sherlock has gone too far.

* * *

Sherlock knows John has not forgiven him for experimenting on him in Baskerville. He knows this because John clenches his teeth when he speaks to him and John doesn't touch him again.

Sherlock knows it will just take time. He'll get through to John. He thinks of the things he could say, should say, wants to say, but if they are wrong the consequences will be untenable. It is better to wait.

But then Moriarty decides to play again and Sherlock doesn't get a chance to tell John any of the things he considered saying.

Instead he says goodbye.

* * *

John wishes a lot of things but the thing he wishes most was that the last time he'd been intimate with Sherlock hadn't been the last time. He wishes he'd said more that night. Told Sherlock all the mad feelings he was having, even if Sherlock hadn't wanted to hear them. At least they would have been said.

His best friend is dead.

* * *

It takes too long. Six months too long, but finally Sherlock judges it safe enough to come back to John. He finds him, not at Baker Street, but in a sad little bedsit on the other side of London. He doesn't want to wait to reveal himself, doesn't want to wait for the perfect moment, he's waited too long already.

He sees the light on in the bedsit, hears the tv playing and he knocks on the door.

John just stares at him, and at first Sherlock thinks he doesn't recognise him, because of his hair, now short, red.

"John, it's me," he says.

John shakes his head. "No. You're dead."

Sherlock is not sure what to expect from this homecoming. He has longed for it. He imagines pulling John into an embrace, touching his face again, holding him. He imagines John smiling, smiling.

"Get out."

He doesn't imagine this.

"John, please." He puts his foot in the door before it can slam. "Don't-"

"What, Sherlock? Because YOU ARE DEAD!"

And Sherlock decides that reason is beyond John at this point and he pushes into the room and wraps his arms around him, holding his close, tight. "John, listen to me," he says and quickly, urgently, explains, tells him everything he can think of before John interrupts or pushes him away or stops him.

John does stop him, in the end. He puts his arms around Sherlock in return and head bowed, rubs his forehead into his chest. Sherlock falls silent, he can hear the muffled sobs but he doesn't comment. He just holds on too.

And then John looks up, fierce, holds Sherlock's face in two firm, capable hands, and kisses him. He draws back, studying Sherlock and Sherlock lets him see everything, he doesn't try to hide anything at all, before John kisses him again.

It isn't long then before they are both tumbled on John's cramped bed. And John is angry and fierce and passionate and he tears Sherlock's clothes from him and pushes him down and kisses him everywhere and then fucks him until they both lie spent.

John gnaws his lip as he looks at Sherlock. "Um, sorry, are you- was that- I mean, you ok?"

Sherlock nods. He doesn't trust himself to speak. He feels a smile on his face that he can't stop. He can't stop smiling. He just looks at John. Looks and looks. And John breaks into a grin, that wonderful grin. And then flops down on Sherlock and holds him and starts to laugh.

"Oh god, you're alive. You marvellous bastard."

And Sherlock holds him and strokes his hair and kisses his head. "I didn't want to go," he says.

And John sighs. It's not an entirely bad sigh. "Tell me then. Tell me everything."

So Sherlock does and they lie there in the little bed until dawn, talking about everything from why Sherlock had to die, to how to what he did while he was gone and what John had done.

Finally they talk about what next and it makes Sherlock so very happy when John says, "we'll go back to Baker Street then, Mrs Hudson will be pleased."

Sherlock untangles himself and stands. "Tea?" he asks.

"Tea," says John, sitting up, looking delightfully dishevelled. And he smiles again and Sherlock knows everything will be exactly right.

**The end.**


End file.
